Ice Hockey is not the only game invented by Canadians. In 1891, James Naismith (1861-1939), who was born in the village of Almonte ON (near Ottawa), invented basketball. At the time, he was teaching in the northeastern USA. The world's most popular sport got its name from Naismith's idea to use two baskets as goals.

Naismith was a school teacher, and he was looking for some physical exercise for his students indoors during the winter months. He thought that a good indoor game would include a ball that could be thrown and caught easily, and a goal that the ball could be thrown into. When he came up with idea of using large fruit baskets for the goals, he had invented the basic sport of basketball.

From the start, Naismith had the baskets elevated off the floor. But he did not think right away of cutting holes in the baskets, so, each time someone scored, a person had to climb a ladder to retrieve the ball.

Basketball's great popularity is not difficult to understand:

• equipment for it does not cost very much,
• the game stresses skill over strength, so people of different sizes can compete with one another at it, and
• the game emphasizes speed over power, so not just the strongest people win.

Naismith spent most of his career as a teacher in the state of Kansas, USA. He became a USAmerican citizen in 1925.